Frodo's Precious
by Arquen Telquanda
Summary: *chapter 3 up!* Frodo goes walking on his birthday and runs into a Tookish lass. A sweet little love story. Will eventually be several chapters. This is my first fanfic, so pls. read and review!
1. Head over Heels

Frodo's Precious by Arquen Telquanda © 2002  
  
Disclaimer: Of COURSE I'm not Tolkien. He's dead. (Seriously, I don't own any of these characters, nor is this story for any purpose but sheer enjoyment on the part of the author and all possible readers.)  
  
Note: Yes, I have read all three LotR books. For ease of description, though, all the characters here are described as if they really look, sound, and act like the actors who played them in the PJackson LotR films. I'm also not entirely sure how all the hobbit's ages fit together, so just assume that everyone is Frodo's age unless otherwise specified.  
  
This takes place sometime between Bilbo's final birthday-party and the re- arrival of Gandalf in the Shire.  
  
  
  
Frodo padded through the forest track, his stealthy hobbit-feet making no noise on the pine needles that carpeted the path. He'd struck out on his own today, his birthday, for a time to think. He'd told no one - not Pip or Merry, not even Sam, his best friend.  
  
Some very un-Baggins-like thoughts were stirring around in his head. He'd been spending too much time with Bilbo, that's for certain, filling his mind with all sorts of wild ideas! Why couldn't he be satisfied with the Shire and Bag End, perhaps a garden like Sam had and loved so? Why was he cursed with these silly dreams and wishes?  
  
He sat down on a ledge, dangling his feet over the gently sloping cliffside, and pulled an apple from his pocket. Shining it on his waistcoat, he failed to notice the shadow racing along behind him until it tripped and fell upon him headlong, sending both of them sliding down the shaded track.  
  
The apple was knocked from Frodo's hand a second before the wind in his lungs followed suit. He navigated a final root by way of his rib cage and lay there, breathless, while his comrade-in-mishap thumped to a stop alongside a stump. In the silence that followed he could hear hard breathing and a sneeze.  
  
Then a scrabbling sound came and two small hands gripped him by the wrists. "Oh, Mr. Baggins! I'm terribly sorry!" The hands pulled him up from the ground and stood him on his feet. Frodo looked into the face of a hobbit- maid, freckled and dark-eyed, with a mob cap over her curly brown hair, round little ears, and a pointed chin. Her dress was faded green linen, covered by a grass-stained pinny-apron, and around her neck she wore a string of white beads. She was young, Frodo thought; then, looking again, saw the slight curves beneath her homespun dress and blushingly changed his mind.  
  
The disheveled girl curtsied. "Maylily Took, sir, at y'service. I'm so sorry for the upset, you see I took the short cut through Farmer Snout's cornfield and found Peregrin's path, but farmer must have thought I was him and sent the dogs after me. Are you hurt?" Her voice had the same Tookish lilt as Pippin's.  
  
Frodo absently rubbed his head. "No, I don't think so, although I may have sprained my dignity on the way down. Are you Pippin's sister?" He immediately kicked himself for asking such a foolish question: there were at least ten separate families of Tooks in the Shire, and the odds of Pippin and Maylily being so closely related were very slim. Not a good way to impress a lass, by asking stupid questions! he thought.  
  
"No, Mr. Baggins," said Maylily, bowing her head. "First cousin thrice removed, I believe. My father's Adelard Took, of Tuckborough."  
  
Frodo's blue eyes opened wide in amusement. "You're a long ways from home, then, Miss Took. What are you up to around here?"  
  
"I'm looking for Peregrin, Mr. Baggins. Do you know where he is?"  
  
"Not at the moment, miss, but I know where he'll soon be." Frodo bent and picked up his apple. "It's getting dark, and you can't walk all the way back to Tuckborough from here. Come on, I'll take you down to the Green Dragon. Have you had supper?"  
  
"Oh, Mr. Baggins, I haven't eaten since elevensies!"  
  
  
  
It was dark out by the time Frodo pushed open the door to the tavern. The Green Dragon was warm, well-lit and crowded; Pippin and Merry occupied the center of the floor, waving mugs and singing. They sent up a shout when Frodo and Maylily came into view.  
  
"Ho! the birthday boy's here!" cried Merry. "Look, everyone, drinks on Frodo!"  
  
Frodo laughed and signalled to the bartender; he gathered four mugs to him and threaded his way through the crowd to Pippin and Merry's table. Pippin choked on his ale as Frodo's companion approached. "Maylily! Why aren't you back home safe where I left you last time?"  
  
"I'm only a little younger'n you and your friends, Peregrin, and I'll thank you not to treat me like a wee toddler!" Maylily flashed back, relaxing as she fell into an obviously familiar pattern. "I came looking for you, Master Took, on account of your mam wants you to thatch up the kitchen ceiling again, and ran over poor Mr. Baggins here - aye, and knocked him down Three-farthing Hill!"  
  
Merry eyed Frodo. "He seems all right to me. Don't worry, Lil, he probably enjoyed it."  
  
Pippin snorted with laughter as Frodo reddened. Merry continued on, gesturing philisophically with his half-empty tankard. "Now, Miss Maylily, you mustn't be deceived by them big blue innocent peepers Frodo's got. Behind those eyes is a mind like a knife edge - he'll pull you in, sure enough, and he won't never let you go."  
  
Pippin was laughing so hard he couldn't speak. Maylily leaned over the table and pinched Merry's earlobe. "Sure he will, and there's a sea-dragon under Buckleberry Ferry too, isn't that so, Master Merry?"  
  
Merry winked. "Aye, girlie, and he'll take your foot off if you aren't careful. I got bitten once - "  
  
"Merry, that was nothing but a splinter," Frodo interrupted, glad for the change of subject. Pippin joined in. "Aye, Maylily, you should have seen him - screaming like a baby, beggin' us to pull the branch out of his foot, while all the time it was only a tiny thing!"  
  
While Pippin and Merry argued, Frodo filched a roll and a wedge of cheese from a tavern-lad's tray as he went by. He passed them to Maylily and was rewarded with a shy smile. "Don't pay any attention to Merry," Frodo said, in what he hoped was a casual manner.  
  
Maylily shook her head. "He's been teasing me since I was born. I never listen to cousin Merry, Mr. Baggins."  
  
"Oh, don't call me that - it makes me feel old," Frodo grinned. "Frodo's fine."  
  
She smiled again, her eyes sparkling in the lamplight. Very timidly, Frodo reached for her hand. 


	2. A Cry in the Night

A whirling shape crashed down between them and hoisted Frodo to his feet. "Come on, Frodo!" shouted Pippin. "Dance!"  
  
Next moment Frodo found himself in a spinning ring of dancers, all cheering Sandyman the fiddler in the center. Merry leapt into the middle and jigged furiously, his feet a brown blur that made the floorboards shake. Through the crowd Frodo glimpsed his seat on the bench, and Maylily's equally empty place. He looked around wildly but saw her nowhere.  
  
Pippin's high whistle pierced the music, and Frodo spun around to the center. Maylily was there, dancing faster than Merry had been. Her cheeks, red from drink and exertion, were rounder than apples as she laughed. Her hands clutched her skirts and lifted them above her shins, showing small feet flocked with silky brown curls. The fiddle music quickened, and with a shriek of delight Maylily quickened her pace to meet it. Finally, with a last flourish, Sandyman bowed out. "You've beaten me, lassie - I can't go any faster'n that!"  
  
Pippin whooped and grabbed his cousin, standing her on the table and setting a wreath of violets on her head. "Ladies and gentlehobbits, Maylily Took - the finest dancer in the Shire!"  
  
Maylily blushed and curtsied, catching Frodo's eye. He lifted his hands above the heads of the crowd and clapped, beaming at her. She threw back her head in a full-throated laugh, her long curls flying over her shoulders. Her cap was askew, her apron rumpled, but Frodo was mesmerized.  
  
As the crowd began to disperse, Pippen lifted Maylily down - "Here, Frodo! Catch!" - and tossed her suddenly to Frodo. He caught her around the waist, turning red as she half-fell against him, and set her on those delicate feet. She looked at him, and her smile faded as she saw the expression on his face. "Why, Frodo," she said, "you're all quiet."  
  
Her gaze traveled downward, and too late he remembered his hands still rested on her hips. He snatched them away, his face burning now, and looked for a second towards the bar, praying Pip and Merry weren't watching him.  
  
When he turned back he saw Maylily talking to Merry. Pippin elbowed his way through the crowd, weaving a little unsteadily. "Frodo! One more for the road, then me'n'Merry are takin' this lass home."  
  
"All the way back to Tuckborough? It's forty miles-by pony it'll take you an hour!"  
  
"Well, we've nowhere else to go, do we? Unless we stop over at Bag End," Pippin chuckled.  
  
"Why, then," said Frodo slowly, shocked at the idea that had occurred to him, "come for the night. It's my birthday, after all."  
  
~*~  
  
Frodo lay awake that night, tossing in his sheets like a thing possessed. They'd stayed up fairly late, smoking and talking, and turned in around two. Pippin and Merry had the spare-room, and Maylily had curled up by the fire in the sitting-room, only too happy to doze off in one of the cushioned wicker chairs. Every time Frodo got nearer to sleep her eyes would appear in his mind, jolting him awake. Finally he could stand it no longer.  
  
He padded down the hall to the entrance-way with the round green door and turned right, into the sitting room. The embers glowed faintly, casting a murky light over the small figure in the basket chair.  
  
Frodo took a step closer. The red blanket hid her small body but not her face; sleeping on her side, she had tucked a hand underneath her head. Her white shift peeked out from the blanket's hem, and a few toes were visible elsewhere. Frodo gently pulled the blanket down to cover them. Then, slowly, he brushed a curl back from her face and tucked it behind her ear.  
  
Maylily stirred and Frodo froze in panic; as she settled down again she murmured in her sleep. "No. no, that's not mine. no, stop! Leave me alone!" She began to struggle with the blanket, her voice rising in volume. Frodo dropped to his knees and grasped her shoulders, shaking her as gently as he could. "Maylily! Maylily, wake up!"  
  
Her eyes flew open and she sat up, breathing hard. Frodo stared at her, in concern as much as in wonder. Hobbits were never bred for beauty - most were round, sturdy little folk - but Maylily was delicate in a way that belied her strength, and she wriggled under his hands, striving to break free, before she realized who he was.  
  
"Frodo!"  
  
"What happened? Don't worry, Maylily, it was just a dream-" He saw she was fighting back tears. "Here, I'll make us some tea."  
  
Ten minutes later Frodo carried out two mugs of raspberry-leaf tea to the sitting room. Maylily was hunched over in the blanket, sitting in the center of the basket chair. Frodo handed her a steaming cup.  
  
"Thank you," she whispered.  
  
Frodo settled himself in one of the overstuffed chairs. "Maylily, if there's anything I can do for you-"  
  
"Will you listen to my story?" Maylily said in a soft voice.  
  
Frodo drew a deep breath. "Anything. I will do anything." 


	3. Maylily's Past

"I am not as closely related to Peregrin as I should be," Maylily began. "Papa adopted me when I was only very small. He is really my uncle; my mother was his wife's sister. Mama - that is, my aunt - was Iris Proudfoot before she married Adelard Took; her sister Violet Proudfoot, my mother, married a North-took from Long Cleeve. I was their only child.  
  
"My mother died in childbirth when I was only a babe, taking a brother of mine with her; and my father, Everard, raised me till I could walk and talk. But when I was still just a small child, my father was killed.  
  
"He had gone into Bree, you see, leaving me at home with Peregrin and his family. When he was there he was mistaken for one of the Bree-land thieves that roam the village in the winters - he was tall for a hobbit, being descended from Bandobras Bullroarer. Three men attacked him on his way out of the gates. He made it back home on his pony, but died in bed a few days later.  
  
"The last time I saw him was the night before he died. He called me over to his bedside and touched my hair. Then he handed me these." She toyed with the white beads around her neck. "They had been my mother's." Frodo had a sudden image of Maylily weeping over her father, and the thought shook him to the core.  
  
"He said I should have them," Maylily went on. "I was still so small that at first I refused to take them, because I still thought of them as my mother's. But he insisted, and finally Adelard tied them around my neck. I've never taken them off since.  
  
"They buried him back in Long Cleeve, next to my mother and brother. Uncle Adelard became my father then, and when aunt Iris had a son that year she named him Everard.  
  
"Now I have dreams sometimes about the men who murdered my father. They come back for the necklace, which is all I have to remember my parents by. Mostly my sister Daisy wakes me up. I'm sorry if I woke you." She looked down and buried her nose in her cup, and Frodo saw she was crying.  
  
He shook his head slowly. "Don't apologize, Maylily. I would much rather be woken than leave you alone and sad."  
  
Those great dark eyes looked at him, and a tear slipped slowly over the freckles on her cheek. Frodo stood and inched toward her, then knelt and tentatively brushed the teardrop away with his knuckle.  
  
She laughed shyly, her gaze in her lap. He slid his hand down her cheek and under her chin, raising her face until their eyes met. Gently, Frodo leaned forward and touched his lips to hers.  
  
They kissed softly, both nervous, but as the kiss went on the nervousness melted away. Frodo had noticed a shy eagerness about Maylily in the Green Dragon; now, as her rosebud mouth moved over his own chapped, windbeaten lips, he sensed that same eagerness once more, veiled by a bashfulness that was all the more endearing. Her small hands tangled in his black hair, cupping the back of his neck, and yet the pressure on his mouth was no more than a breath of air.  
  
He drew away reluctantly and looked at her again, checking to see her reaction. She smiled faintly. "Aye, Merry was right, I see," she said.  
  
Frodo's face made a question. Maylily covered her smile with her hand.  
  
"'It's them big blue eyes, Maylily,' he said. 'He'll rope you in, aye, and never let you go.' Looks like he was right."  
  
Frodo's mouth curved up in a long grin. "If you fell for these blue eyes, those brown ones of yours did the same thing to me."  
  
Maylily leaned forward and kissed him again. This time they both expected it, and could savor the touch of each other's skin, their smell, their taste. Frodo slid his lips from her mouth to her cheek; he kissed her eyes, her nose, her dainty ears. She giggled. "That tickles."  
  
Frodo lifted Maylily from the chair and moved her over, then sat down beside her. She cuddled against his chest; his arm went around her shoulders, his lips to her hair. "Maylily, what you said before - I know what you mean. When I was a boy my parents drowned in the Brandywine, and I have almost no memory of them. Aye, you're lucky, to have such a treasure as that necklace."  
  
"What were their names?" said Maylily sleepily.  
  
"Drogo and Primula Baggins. My mother was a Brandybuck."  
  
"Primula Brandybuck. It's pretty." Maylily snuggled down under the blanket. "Thank you, Frodo. If you want to go back to bed, I shan't keep you."  
  
Frodo looked at her, her face glowing red from the dying fire. "If it's all the same to you, I think I'll stay here. Although once you're sleeping I'll have to creep off to my own bed, unless you want Pip and Merry spreading this all over the Shire."  
  
Maylily's smile was radiant. "Please stay with me."  
  
Frodo drew the blanket over her, then rose and put another log on the fire, so it flared into life. He settled back down again, holding Maylily until she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. He checked the clock on the mantelpiece: it was quarter past three. He reached for a pillow and placed it under Maylily's head as he eased out of the chair, then kissed her on the cheek before tiptoeing back to his room. 


End file.
